"Personal Branding for the Business Professional"

Your personal branding can help you find a job, new clients or a promotion. But developing a personal brand has become much more complicated in the age of social networking. Check out the free e-book on personal branding offered by Chris Brogan for a nice combination of traditional and new techniques for personal branding.

I'm checking out some of the websites and other resources that Brogan mentions. Like Website Grader, which will generate a free report on your website's marketing effectiveness.


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Susan B. Weiner, CFA

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

Copyright 2008 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

Webcast: "What to Say to Clients Now"

Investment News is running a webcast on "What to Say to Clients Now" on September 23.

Check it out, if you'd like to hear how others are talking to their clients about the craziness on Wall Street.


_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

Copyright 2008 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

Avoid these mistakes when you evaluate single-manager hedge funds

If you focus only on investment essentials such as philosophy, process, performance, and people when evaluating single-manager hedge funds, you could miss out on some key information.

Some of the other questions you should consider, according to "Selecting Single-Manager Hedge Funds for Private Client Advisers" by Richard Boutland, include:

• For a non-U.S. fund, who is the fund administrator and how extensive is their role? Boutland prefers strong, involved administrators.
  
•  Is the fund managed in a country with a strong regulator?
• Does the fund manager have adequate operations expertise and adequate capital? Boutland notes that "on many occasions 'star traders' have set up their own firms only to fail through lack of adequate information technology, compliance, trade support, personnel, investor relations, and all of the other operational support."
  
• Are there special terms for other investors that discriminate against redemptions by new investors? 

Boutland's article appeared in the CFA Institute's Private Wealth Management e-newsletter.



_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

Copyright 2008 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

Make your clients smile, while you stay safe from lawyers

Making a client smile can bring your meeting one step closer to a successful result. 

So, consider using a cartoon about the economy or stock market. It's easy to find them by searching CartoonBank.com, a collection from the New Yorker. 

Could you use the cartoon described by the following caption?

“I got out of tulips after the market collapsed, but I’m slowly getting back in. Especially pink ones.” 

Or, how about this one?

“Actually, ‘Monkey see, monkey do’ has served me quite well in this market.”

When you license cartoons for use in presentations, you keep yourself safe from charges of copyright infringement. Lawyers can't come after you. That's an added benefit. 

Have you used cartoons successfully in your presentations?


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Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing

Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

Copyright 2008 All rights reserved

"Writing Effective E-Mail: Top 10 Tips"

You can't be an effective financial advisor, if you can't communicate effectively via e-mail.

Your e-mail subject line is key. If you write a weak subject line, your client or colleague may ignore or even delete your message. Write a strong one, and you're more likely to get the response you need.

"Writing Effective E-Mail: Top 10 Tips" by Dennis Jerz does a nice job of critiquing subject lines as he explains how to "write a meaningful subject line."


_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

Get to the point quickly, or lose your web readers

"Web content must be brief and get to the point quickly, because users are likely to be on a specific mission."

I agree with this assertion by Jakob Nielsen, a guru of website usability, in "Writing Style for Print vs. Web." 

Nielsen gives good pointers for web writing in "How Users Read on the Web." 

If you don't please your readers, your website will suffer from a high bounce rate. In other words, readers will quickly desert your website. In "Reduce Bounce Rates: Fight for the Second Click," Nielsen suggests solutions. They boil down to providing links to relevant information on your website.
_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

"Ten Speech Tips for Writing Powerful and Persuasive Presentations"

"Always work out what you want to achieve before beginning the speech process," says author Thomas Murrell in "Ten Speech Tips for Writing Powerful and Persuasive Presentations." 


The same rule applies to your written communications. Figure out your goal ahead of time. Then focus on achieving it. Weed out any content that distracts.




_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.